Cut
by Penlym
Summary: Zoe mourns the loss of Wash after Miranda...and Mal is looking for his Milky Way! Rated T for dark themes. #4 in the Aftermath series.


Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot! Warning: rated M for dark themes. NB: Please read and review!

Sometimes she felt the drinking made her sane. Sometimes, when the room dipped and spun, and the bottle was almost empty, she thought she saw him. Sometimes it was just a flash of blonde, a whisper, a glimpse of his face…every moment was precious, treasured—until she woke the next morning and couldn't remember anything, except the burning intensity of his beautiful blue eyes. She would refuse to look at the picture that lay face-down on her bedside table, refused to bring more pain to the raw wound. She knew, she _knew_ that something had happened in those moments of numbingly wonderful bliss…glass shattered and it scattered across the floor. She stared at her hand in confusion, sensing the clogging in her throat, the choking feeling that made her eyes tear up and the frustration and anger that welled inside. She squeezed her eyes shut, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Zoe, y'all right in there?" It was Kaylee.

She said she was fine and that the glass had slipped. She wasn't sure if she was telling Kaylee or herself.

Sometimes she felt that she was being plunged further into despair. Alcohol-induced sleep failed to chase away the nightmares that made her toss and turn and wake with a cry, drenched in her own sweat. They were less easy to forget. If she could've done something, told him to move sooner…things might have been different. If it hand't been for her. She couldn't be trusted to be responsible for anyone anymore—no. That was a lie. Somewhere, deep down, she knew there was nothing she could have done. But there was still that sense of 'what if?' What if they hadn't had to land so violently? What if he had moved just a second earlier? What if he hadn't been piloting at all? Would he still be alive today? She told herself 'yes', but sometimes she had to wonder. She seemed to be full of lies these days.

I'm fine— _lie_.

I'll be alright— _lie_.

I promise I'll try harder. _Another lie_. They ate her up from the inside out, until she could no longer bear to look at herself in the mirror. She missed who she had been. She hated who she was.

But she wasn't the only one who had lied.

 _We're here for you_ —where were they now?

 _Things will get better_ —if this was better, she'd hate to see worse.

Then there was the worst, the most patronising and incomprehensible words she could imagine: _I understand_ —who could ever understand? How _dare_ they presume to understand, when it was impossible?

She gave a bitter laugh and hiccuped, reaching for the glass again—only to remember that it lay shattered across the floor. Swallowing annoyance, she reached for the bottle—it was empty. Panic welled up inside her. She fell off the bed reaching for the glass, then hiccuped and laughed. It didn't last very long. She was at that wonderful, blissful stage where the previous moment didn't matter anywhere near as much as the present. The pain of her landing was a distant ache in her side, and she crawled towards where a large piece of the glass lay near the stairs of her bunk, still in tact. She couldn't feel the shards biting against her skin. It was so pretty, so shiny, and so sharp. They had taken all her weapons away from her. They believed her to be a child, she thought bitterly. They didn't think to remove the water by her bed, and they didn't find her secret stash of spirits that she kept behind the cupboard either.

Finally, her addled brain interpreted the sensations of pain spiking up her arm and with a gasp she saw the blood welling from where her hand clutched the shard. She threw the glass down on the floor and stared at her hand in shock. Just below them, her wrists were riddled with veins. It would be so easy…

Slowly, and carefully, she picked up the shard of glass again, pressing it against the sensitive area. She wouldn't have to _feel_ anymore; she could end everything now and say she'd done it on her own terms; she could see Wash again.

She pressed the glass deeper against her skin, and she felt its sharp bite. Yet she couldn't seem to find the strength…the courage. She was scared—scared of death. She was weak; a pathetically weak human being who didn't deserve to live.

"Zoe," a voice hollered from the other side of her door. "I know what you're doing in there." It was Mal. "I want to see you in the galley in 5 minutes, _dong ma_?"

Panic rose inside her—how did he know? How could he possibly know? She glanced around suspiciously, reaching a hand out to steady herself as the room spun. Surely he wasn't that sick…? But no cameras were perched on the walls.

There was a thudding on her door. "Zoe? I know it was you that took my chocolate stash."

She stared in numb disbelief at her bedside table, where the picture lay face-down, as her brain slowly computed what Mal was saying.

"I swear if you touch my Milky Way, I'll…"

Zoe giggled as Mal blustered with a series of imaginative swear words, then crawled back in bed. The culprit was probably She picked up the picture, stared at it. It had been taken on Persephone. Her head rested on his shoulder—which was clad in one of his awful shirts, of course—and they wore grinning, blissfully ignorant expressions. Somehow one of Wash's dinosaurs had managed to float in-between them in the picture—probably held by one of the crew.

She smiled. Wash had loved Milky Ways. Soon Mal walked away, and it wasn't long before Zoe collapsed against the pillow, her eyes drifting closed as she hugged the picture to her breast.

So...I thought things were getting a bit dark and tried to add a bit of humour at the end! A penny for your thoughts?


End file.
